Agitprop

Agitprop, Part 0

“Lendiz: The books on all spheres of knowledge”, Alexander Rodchenko, 1925

Agitprop

The CU Agitprop course will be serialised for the SADTU Political Education Forum in the third quarter of 2013.

The SACP by its Constitution is supposed to “educate, organise and mobilise”. These three terms can be put together into one: “Agitate”.

The word “Propaganda” came into wide use after the “Congregatio de Propaganda Fide” (Latin for “congregation for the propagation of the faith”) was set up by the Catholic Church in Rome in 1622. Its business was to “propagate”, and what that means is:

“Cause to grow in numbers or amount; extend the bounds of; spread (especially an idea, practice, etc.) from place to place. Grow more widespread or numerous, increase, spread.

“Extend the action or operation of; transmit (motion, light, sound, etc.) in some direction or through some medium. Be transmitted, travel.”

These words quoted from the big (“New Shorter”, 2-Volume) Oxford Dictionary can help to describe what we mean by Propaganda, in this course.

Agitational Propaganda (Agitprop for short) is what this course is about. It is a practical course. It is about means, and arts. It starts with writing, but the course is saying that human expression and communication takes many forms. We use all of them, and we try to use them well.

The ten parts of the course will be:

1	Writing, Editing and Press Releases
2	Layout, Fliers, Pamphlets, and Copy-shop Agitprop
3	‘Paint’, Posters and Graphic Art
4	Groups, Blogs, Web Sites, Multi-Media and the Universal Device
5	Song, Dance, Drama and Poetry
6	Banners, Flags, Clothing and Stalls
7	Marches, Seminars, Public Meetings, and Soap Box Oratory
8	Strikes, Work-to-rules, Sit Downs and Occupations
9	Broadcasting, Loudhailing and Exhibitions
10	Sound System, Carpentry, Painting and Catering

Original texts

In this course there are fewer “original texts” than usual in the Communist University courses.

For that reason the “Openings to Discussion” will be compiled together and sent out as a booklet each week. This weekly booklet will also be used as the hard-copy document for discussion in live sessions. Where there are original texts, they will also be sent.

·        To download any of the CU courses in PDF files please click here.